It starts with two crossword puzzles. They had been sent to Gamadge direct. Someone has used them to send a coded message. A message asking for help in escaping.

Sylvia Coldfield felt she was being held prisoner at her husband’s family estate. The premise was she had had a breakdown after her husband died. Suicide by sleep pills was the verdict, but Sylvia felt different, especially after she almost died from the same pills — but she hadn’t taken any herself!

Gamache orchestrates a slick removal of Sylvia, under the noses of Sylvia’s inlaws. He then proceeds to investigate the death of Sylvia’s husvand and the secrets within the family tied to it.

Racy letters from an older generation, greed, a married woman lusting after a younger man and more, all hidden behind a mask of respectability.

A bit of Agatha Christie, Martha Graves and Louise Penny make Daly’s Gamadge series a solid read for me. ( )

A young widow imprisoned by her family sends an ingenious message to Gamadge, who neatly rescues her and then takes on her case --her family were intending to have her committed to a mental institution because she insisted her husband's death and her own ear-death were not suicide and attempted suicide by murder and attempted murder. It turns out that a set of letters written by a Victorian poet ("Garthwain" suggesting William Morris) to her husband's late grandmother has been secretly sold, and her husband had discovered this. Gamadge quite quickly fids out the guilty party --with a twist at the end. I was struck by the efficiency of the sory --the whole story runs only 144 pages --other authors might easily have doubled the length. I prefer brevity myself. I notice recurring motifs in these stories -- hints of suspected insanity and the greed of the genteel poor. ( )